Flash
by LiveRandom
Summary: A photographer and young adventurer meet at an art show and quickly fall into a passionate relationship. Will their passion become true love, or will the pain ultimately split them apart? "It began in a flash - but it was over just as quick"


**A/N: Ahh! a new story! I am extremely excited about this particular plot line, and I would love to hear what you guys think . Please send your comments and review, i majorly appreciated it with CtC. This will be my primary focus as far as stories (at least for now), though CtC is coming.  
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**Once again, I could not have done this without Bronzehairedgirl620. I can only hope to become a writer like her.**

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight

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Flash

Chapter One

I've always had a simple motto that I was to live life by. 'Live an exciting life, or don't live at all.' When I was thirteen, I promised myself that I would never be like my parents and buy a beige house in suburbia, own a mini-van, or ever be described as normal. Unlike my homemaker mother, I would be the muse behind rockers songs and go on sporadic trips to South America when I had the urge. This type of ideology is what brought me to New York, allowing a twenty-two year old year old dreamer named Bella to pursue the exciting life she had always yearned for.

To make ends meet I worked at an ad agency, creating witty jingles for obscure rice-like products or cheap toilet tissue. It allowed me to use some of my creativity, and paid the rent for my ridiculously over-priced New York City apartment.

I shared the apartment with my best friend Alice, who had a similar ideology. I posted 'roommate want' ads all over New York, and just as I was beginning to give up on the fairy tale I wanted from the city, Alice, with her jovial energy and short pixie cut, came through the door. She was from Washington, as was I, though we had never met. We immediately clicked and explored the city together through late nights and aimless wandering.

We'd also planned on going to an art gallery opening in SoHo together, when Alice suddenly came down with the flu.

"Go without me. It'll be fun."

"It won't be half as fun without you," I teased.

But who was I to deny an opportunity to attend an event in the city? I quickly put on one of my many bohemian dresses and let my hair fall loose before leaving.

"Tell me about all the adventures you have," she screamed as I walked out the door.

It was an up and coming gallery, one in which the young and beautiful were the only ones that entered. It was filled with the promise of Cum Laude graduates and the future Sunday New York Times wedding announcements. Overplayed "Indie" artists blared loudly over the stereo-system while young men and women debated politics, or discussed the importance of traveling to Europe "at least once." It seemed as if every person there, with their red wine glasses in hand, believed they were somewhat important to the world, as if they brought culture into a room.

The women laughed as if they had never heard a witty word, and the men stood tall at the thought that they could afford art like this.

I slowly glided through the large room, looking at one piece and then moving on to another. Boxes that simply looked like boxes, canvases with a splotch of paint and a metaphorical title. This was not art or passion, but rather hollow and meaningless items scattered across a gallery.

I continued to move through the crowds of people, hoping to find at least one significant piece of talent, and there he was. I had seen him before, in art galleries such as this. He was British, unshaven, and utterly mysterious. He leaned against the wall in a casual manner and took out a lighter, smoking the cigarette that he has been twiddling in his fingers. He inhaled, glanced at the ceiling, the crowd around him, and then suddenly, in my direction. His gaze was held directly at me, a crooked smile appeared on his lips. But he quickly went right back to puffing his cigarette and gazing insipidly at those around him. I gradually moved away from the inhabitants of the gallery and towards a corner wall, where I could stand and think alone.

After minutes of wondering why I was still there and rustling through my messy hair, through the corner of my eye I saw a shadow stroll toward me.

"What do you think?" I heard a calm, British voice say.

I looked towards the sound of the mystifying voice and saw the same handsome man I had been gazing at before, but now he was within eye range. He was wearing dark jeans, a white shirt that was hidden under a brown velvet jacket, which was topped off with a red scarf. Ray Ban sunglasses covered his eyes, and he was savoring a cigarette in his mouth. A young, but much more attractive Bob Dylan, if I had ever seen one.

"Not my thing. This doesn't seem like real art to me. This whole room just seems so fake, you know?"

I silently gasped at my honesty. For all I knew, he was the extremely proud artist of these "fake art" pieces.

"I knew it," he said while smiling slightly. "We are the only two real people here." He leaned back against the wall and handed me his cigarette.

I quit smoking a year ago, but he didn't need to know that.

I took a long, sweet drag and handed it back to him, making sure to steady my normally shaky hand. Just as the silence was becoming awkward I heard him speak.

"So what's you name anyway, 'girl who hates fake art,' and where are you from? You're not a born New Yorker, I can tell that much."

Oh, shit. All the things I never wanted to hear in one sentence. I'd always believed that I at least looked like a New Yorker."

"I'm Bella. Bella Swan. And I'm from Washington originally. But now I live on 83rd and Holly. Right near the used bookstore," I said, trying to convince him that I was not a tourist, but rather a full-blown city girl. But I later gasped at the fact that I gave a complete stranger directions to my apartment.

"83rd and Holly. Yeah, I know where that is."

We stayed like that for a while, taking drags of his cigarette, making fun of the visitors of the gallery.

"Well, Bella Swan, times calling. But you never know, maybe we'll see each other again." He said while smiling that same crooked smile I had seen before.

"Yeah. Maybe our paths will cross," I replied while trying to smile my amazing smile.

And all too soon my mysterious friend was gone.

As I walked home, I though about what the amazing experience I had at that art showing; an experience I would have never expected. But that was the thing with art galleries; you never knew when you would find that one gem, that one piece of art, which would make all the other crap seem okay.


End file.
